


cemetery drive

by End, slyblues



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Angst, But also, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Soulmates, end brings the Girls In Love™, i know it's starting to look like it's gonna be a cute funny fic but, i swear i'm an adult, its about the Longing™, mostly fma03 but i did take certain things from the manga/brotherhood so, shameless use of mcr in 2019, sly brings the angst and the mcr, they are nasty nasty men so rating is subject to change in the future, trust me it's not going to stay like that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 15:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21530173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/End/pseuds/End, https://archiveofourown.org/users/slyblues/pseuds/slyblues
Summary: I miss you, I miss you so farAnd the collision of your kissThat made it so hardRoy buried himself in his work. He had his rank back, his team, his mission, butfuck,there was still something missing.He knew exactly what it was. Everyone else knew what it was. No one talked about it. They didn’t have to, really, because Roy’s chest still ached no matter what he did, or what he took, or how much he drank. He still sat upright in bed all night, staring at the far wall of his bedroom and imagining what he’d say to a young man with gently waving blond hair and arresting golden eyes and a lithe masculine build highlighted by a carefully tailored waistcoat, if only he would ever see him again.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric/Winry Rockbell, Edward Elric/Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Gracia Hughes
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	1. 0

Alphonse had two eyes colored in blazing molten gold. Ed couldn’t remember his brother having another eye, one that glinted sharp steel blue in the moonlight. He only knew his little brother, bright like the sun with eyes that shone the same when he and twilight blue Winry poured over old medical texts and alchemical research journals. 

Ed’s right eye was like his brother’s. Not exactly the same, if you looked hard enough, you could tell that Ed’s was a little more yellow, barely lighter than Al’s. It was duller, too, he decided one day as he studied it in the mirror; it didn’t shine the same, it didn't feel as warm and safe as Al’s. There was something behind it that felt almost dangerous. It did not remind him of mom, or of home and roaming sunshine. 

He didn’t think much about his other eye. It was plain enough, which he felt a little bad for thinking about his _soulmate’s_ eye, but the dark, near black of the iris didn’t stand out like others’ blues and greens and greys. 

He hoped, though, that one day, when he met someone with one gold and one brown eye, when he watched the gold in their left fade into the stark color of their right, both those brown eyes would glow like mom’s soft green, and Winry’s sharp blue, and Alphonse’s cool gold. 

He hated himself when he realized he stole that from Winry.

*** 

Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang was 25 years old when his left eye went brown. He was a grown man, an established military officer, a killer thousands of times over. He was looking down at a _boy,_ a child eleven years old, missing limbs, mangled in a horrible way, only barely looking up at Roy from under heavy eyelids and long blond eyelashes.

The boy’s left eye, impossibly dark and worryingly familiar faded into the same wildfire, raw gold as his right. 

Roy felt sick. 

He didn’t let it show. He kept talking, ignored the way the boy’s eyes just hardly widened, shoved down that disgusting churning in his gut that threatened at the back of his throat. 

He was grateful to make it out of the Rockbell place with the degree of nonchalant composure he did. He pretended not to notice Riza’s eyes on him, still mismatched in two shades of brown. He pretended he wasn’t stumbling and tripping over his own feet by the time they made it to the tiny motel. 

It was that night that Riza woke at a dizzying hour of the morning, roused by clattering in the next room, and carefully pressed open the Colonel’s door. He looked up at her from the floor, distraught and remarkably intoxicated, with bloodshot black-brown eyes that pleaded silently even as a sob ripped from his throat. Roy threw his head into his hands, grasping at his hair and digging his nails into his scalp. Riza knelt beside him and pushed away the half-empty liquor bottles, pried his hands from his hair. 

His face was red from the alcohol, and the crying, and the angry red scratch marks trailing over his cheeks and neck. He mumbled quietly to himself, and Riza wasn’t going to ask him to speak up. 

He did anyways, he turned his face to her, looked her firm in the eye, and whispered as he shook his head frantically, “He’s a _boy,_ he’s— he’s only a kid, _Riza,_ I don’t know— I don’t know what to do. Why, why, _why_ —” He tried to pull his hands back up to his face, but Riza held them firmly in hers. _“What the fuck?”_ His voice breaks, and he sounds broken, he sounds like he’s dying. “What did I _do_? No— no, I deserve worse, but he doesn’t—” A deep, shaking breath tremored through his body. “He doesn’t deserve this.” 

Riza knew, some tiny part of Roy had always been optimistic about the prospect of meeting his soulmate. He hoped it would be some man or woman, _his age,_ soft and not world-weary and scarred like he was. He hoped it would feel like coming home and second chances. He wasn’t expecting a _child_ , a young boy not even old enough to have finished primary school, broken and beaten down, literally torn apart by his being a child, only wanting to see his mother again. 

“Are you considering,” Riza pauses for a fraction of a moment, “ _doing_ anything about it?”

Roy jolted back like she had held an iron to his hands. _“No!”_ His eyes were wild and searching, hoping, begging. “You know me, _you know me!”_ His words were desperate and slurred. “I couldn’t— I’m not like that! He’s a _boy_!” His voice was high and hysterical, like she had never heard him before. 

“I know. I know, I didn’t mean— I’m sorry, I know you wouldn’t hurt him, Colonel. I’m sorry.” She reached one hand out to him and he took it. She helped him off the floor and onto the bed. “Get some rest, everything’s going to be fine.” 

She hoped that was the worst of it, as she looked down at him, already dozing off with soft black hair stuck to his sweat-slicked face. The less hopeful, more realistic side of her knew it hadn’t even really started yet. 

Edward Elric became a state alchemist, the youngest in history. 

Roy drank. He drowned out the confusion and guilt with any bodies he could, men and women he never bothered to know or remember. None of them were blond.

Maes died and it got worse. He got better at hiding it from Riza, or maybe she gave up trying to keep him from killing himself slowly. Maybe it wasn’t worth the work, being the only one trying to talk Roy off the ledge. She and Gracia brought food over often, knowing he wouldn’t feed himself anything beyond cheap street food on the weeknights or weekend afternoons he had to stumble home from the bar on his own. Seeing Gracia always twisted the knife settled in his stomach; he didn’t deserve her kindness, not when her husband was dead and her left eye had already faded to a flat grey and he was the one acting like a child. Roy was a leech, a grown man with trivial issues he didn’t have the maturity to deal with properly. Eventually, Riza started driving him to work every morning, and all but putting the pen in his hand herself. He didn’t know if the rest of the team saw what was happening. If they did, no one said anything. If they noticed, they decided to leave it alone. 

He lost an eye, and it only really hurt when he realized he lost the one that was once Ed’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no dont turn to alcohol ur so sexy haha


	2. I

  
  


Roy was drawn from the north by the promise of gold hair and shining eyes. 

A fading memory of a metal hand fisted around his lapel and a hasty, childish kiss on a street corner compelled him southward. The last glimpse of a braid disappearing in the distance relit the fire in him, gave him purpose.

All he was afforded was another glimpse, a fleeting look at the boy— the  _ man—  _ that plagued his worst nightmares and dearest dreams for the last two years. That was enough, then. It was enough to know Edward Elric was  _ alive,  _ and to have proof of it. 

Afterward, in the aftermath of Edward’s whirlwind return and departure, Roy buried himself in his work. He had his rank back, his team, his mission, but  _ fuck _ , there was still something missing.

He knew exactly what it was. Everyone else knew what it was. No one talked about it. They didn’t have to, really, because Roy’s chest still ached no matter what he did, or what he took, or how much he drank. He still sat upright in bed all night, staring at the far wall of his bedroom and imagining what he’d say to a young man with gently waving blond hair and arresting golden eyes and a lithe masculine build highlighted by a carefully tailored waistcoat, if only he would ever see him again. 

He had his guiltier moments, when he remembered the curve of Edward’s neck, thrown back to scan his eyes over the expanse of the sky while his chest heaved and his impossible gold eyes shone with drive and adrenaline. 

He wondered if Ed’s hands were warm, or if they were always numb with cold like his own. He wondered what Ed’s hair would smell like— probably something unoffensive and natural, like eucalyptus or mint. He imagined running his fingers over Ed’s cheeks, smooth and defined just so by maturity. Roy desperately wanted to know if Ed’s face, sharp and square, would go scandalized red under close attention. 

  
  
  


One night, exactly one year after the Elrics had gone for good, Roy found himself in the bar about a block away from his home. He had not been a regular customer since before he had last seen a stuttering sixteen year old Edward Elric, before he had been subject to his fumbling, unsure advances and been left dumbstruck and ashamed and staring after a fleeting vision of leather and precious metals. 

Two years after he saw Edward for the last time, Roy went home with a blonde. Her hair wasn’t the right shade of golden blonde, more honey than firelight, but something about it still made him feel dirty. 

He went to work the next day as hungover as anyone could be and pretended he didn’t see the looks Major Hawkeye and Captain Breda sent after him. 

Riza swept into his office half past nine, with the no-nonsense look that meant he was going to regret something. “Sir.”

“Yes?” He shuffled the paperwork on his desk in an attempt to look busy that he knew was futile. 

She pursed her lips and turned to gently shut the door. “What is going on?”

“Nothing?” He gestured to the paperwork. 

“You know what I mean.” Her eyes were stern, but the downturn of her eyebrows and the tightening in the corners of her mouth weren’t anger. The two of them stayed there for a few long moments, with their eyes locked, listening to the tinny whistle of an autumn draft pushing through the gaps in the window frame. Roy broke his gaze first, turning his head and biting down on the inside of his lip. He let his pen clatter to the desk— the nice pen, the monogrammed one that Fuery got him after his promotion. That sent a shock of guilt through him, settling heavy in the back of his throat. 

He leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out with a heavy, tired sigh. 

“Again? I thought this was— I thought you were done with this.” She sounded tired. 

Roy avoided her eyes still and furrowed his brow just slightly as he focused on the grain of the wood in his desk. He coughed a bitter, mirthless laugh and shook his head. “I’m a sick man.” 

Riza’s eyebrows shot up. “Sir, is this about—” 

Roy looked up at her, something painful and indescribable behind his eyes, and shook with a ragged sigh. 

“ _ Oh.  _ You know, it’s not a crime to miss him.”

“I feel like that’s too lame a word for what’s happening here.”

“I know.” Her eyes softened, one kind, warm chocolate brown and the other flat slate grey now. “I know that, at the very least, the Elric brothers wouldn’t want you to keep doing this.”

They were kind words, but they felt like a slap to the face, and he burned with guilt and shame. Roy turned his face away, furrowed his brow. He couldn’t look her in the eye. “I don’t—” 

“Cut the shit, General.” Roy made an indignant noise of protest. “You can’t come in here, looking like  _ that  _ and smelling like a liquor store and expect no one to notice. If you keep this up, you’re either going to wind up in an early grave or out of a job.”

Panic curled deep in his stomach, settled like a rock. 

“You got away with it the first time around, but the government isn’t going to be too easy on its general officers slacking off to get drunk or high or whatever you’re doing now. You _have_ to shape up, Mustang, _for_ _good_ now, and I’ll help you. Gracia will help you, you know that, but we can’t do all the work.”

Roy looked into her grey eye and wanted to cry, he wanted to fall to his knees and grovel for forgiveness. He swallowed the anxiety and the guilt and the shame and dumbly nodded. 

“Come over for dinner tonight? Gracia’s making stew.” 

“Yeah, yes. Thank you.” His voice sounded rough and strained, even to his own ears. 

Riza smiled at him softly and he didn’t deserve it. 

At the end of the day, he collected his coat and a few reports he would finish reviewing later that night and Riza stepped back into his office. She offered him a ride to her home, but he declined politely and mentioned he should straighten himself up more before going to see Gracia and Elysia. She did not argue it. 

  
  


His house was a tall one, two stories, with four bedrooms and three bathrooms and too much suffocating space. When he bought it at twenty two, he imagined living in it with his soulmate, maybe their children. He didn’t particularly want children at any point, really, but he figured a soulmate bond with someone who did could change that. He wondered if Edward ever wanted children, as he threw his coat over the back of his crumbling couch and started dismantling his uniform on his way up the stairs. He wondered if Edward  _ had  _ any children, maybe. He was still young to be settling down, only about twenty now, but maybe he had met someone, over in that other world, and decided to start a family. 

Roy was ashamed of the strike of jealousy that cracked his chest. 

That was mostly what he felt when he thought of the elder Elric— shame. The kind that burned at his face and guts and throat and called him to fight fire with fire, with the expensive brandy he put up on the top shelf of the cupboard with the rest of the alcohol. He had put them all up and away and out of sight when he made the decision to stay in Central long-term. After Edward Elric came back through that gate and stirred all sorts of things in Roy and then left in such an anticlimax it stunned. 

Roy thought. He stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, studied the new wrinkles set in his skin, the hollows under his cheekbones, his hair that had grown past his eyebrows, the heaviness of his eyelids. He looked like shit. He looked like he passed out in a ditch the night before and never bothered to dust himself off. 

But Riza was wrong. It was one night. One mistake. One slip-up. One instance of playing a little harder than he should have. He wasn’t making a habit of anything again. He was fine. 

He scrubbed a dry hand over his face, felt the scratch of new stubble. He heaved himself upright and turned the knob in the shower. He stood under the hot water and wished it were human warmth. He turned his face to the water and pretended he wasn’t crying. 

  
  


Gracia and Riza lived on the other side of town, and Roy showed up on their front doorstep at eight thirty with a bouquet of daisies and sunflowers that thrilled Elysia. Gracia smiled wide and bright at him and hugged him tightly around the shoulders. He managed to wrench his mouth into the closest approximation of a warm smile he could muster as Gracia leaned back and Riza swept up behind her. Riza’s hand rested over Gracia’s hip, all gentle and familiar, and Roy felt that ugly twisting in his chest again. 

Elysia ran out from the dining room and grabbed onto Roy’s arm with both hands. He followed her as she led him to the dining room, where the table was covered in scattered loose photographs and albums. The sight of them made Roy’s stomach drop through the floor. Elysia turned to look up at him, with all her dark blonde hair cracking behind her like a whip. 

She opened her mouth to speak, but Gracia called from the kitchen, “Elysia, honey, pick those up and help set the table!” Elysia’s broad smile fell into an irritated scowl. 

“I have to clean these up now,” she said, pouting and dragging her feet only a little. 

Roy stepped toward the table. “I can get them for you, go help mom, alright?” 

She smiled again and twisted on her heel to start for the door. “Okay! Thanks, uncle Roy!” 

Roy smiled a little, and it wasn’t a struggle. He stacked the albums, lining them up one on top of another, and started gathering the miscellaneous photographs strewn about. They were mostly Elysia and Gracia, Maes was in some of the older ones, and some of the newer ones showed Riza. He picked one face-down photograph up and flipped it over. It was older than the others, dated 1903 in Maes’s shaky handwriting on the back. It was Maes and Roy, both eighteen years old and about midway through their time at the military academy. Maes was laughing at something unseen, and Roy was trying his hardest not to look amused, with his mouth twisted into an exaggerated scowl. 

A hundred fragments of memories shot through his mind at once. Meeting Maes Hughes as a cadet, meeting him again in Ishval, setting down on insane path, aiming to dismantle the foundation of the Amestrian government, vowing to change the world. He remembered one night, months after they returned to Central from Ishval, he and Hughes and someone unmemorable from their platoon spent all night in some dingy, run-down dive bar. The other man went home to his wife around one in the morning, and Roy, being selfish and insolent and horrible, crushed the fabric of Maes’s collar in his fist and  _ begged  _ him not to do the same. He never explained himself to Maes, maybe he figured Roy was just too drunk to find his way home, or something like that. He wasn’t sure what Maes thought, but he knew he thought he was going to kill himself that night. 

He was going to let the guilt— for Ishval, for the Rockbells— finally take him over and do the world a favor. He knew he couldn’t bring himself to do it with Maes in the next room. 

“Uncle Roy?” 

Roy jolted upright, slammed the photograph into the pile and tried to force a smile. 

Elysia cocked her head to the side. “Why are you crying? Is something wrong?” 

He touched his hand to his cheek and quickly wiped away the few stray tears he didn’t know fell. “No, no everything’s alright.” He picks up the photo albums and sets them onto a shelf nearby. 

“It’s okay. Mama still cries when she looks at them sometimes, too.” She set a pile of forks on the table, largely unceremoniously, and hugged Roy around the waist with her face pressed to his chest like she could squeeze a little happiness into him. It reminded him of Maes in a way that made him smile. 

Gracia stepped in and noticed the pile of silverware with a grimace before Roy’s red eyes. 

Gracia and Elysia prepared the table together while Riza doled out servings of stew and rolls of bread. Roy couldn’t help but watch the thoughtless way the two women interacted, the brushing of hands and soft smiles and gentle, mismatched eyes. Riza mindlessly knocked her hip against Gracia’s and patted Elysia’s head softly, sending the little girl to her seat with a fond, sweet smile. Roy fought back the unknown, burning feeling rising in his chest, taking a roll of bread as it is offered to him and tearing it in half to avoid thinking about the source.

As they ate, the girls make soft conversation. Elysia waved her arms excitedly as she regaled them with stories of her time at school, smiling brightly as she dipped her bread into the broth of the stew. Riza passed him more bread— it occured to him, suddenly, that it may have been less of a coincidence that such a heavy stew had been chosen for tonight’s dinner than he was originally lead to believe—and pressed her arm against Gracia’s. Gracia leaned against it for a moment, resting her head on Riza’s shoulder and looking up at her fondly, then turned back to her food. Roy looked down again and tried not to dwell on the feeling again, shoveling food into his mouth mechanically. 

Dinner ended without much fanfare, and Gracia stood and began to gather plates. Roy moved to help, but Gracia shook her head and motioned for Elysia to follow her instead. Elysia grinned and leaned across the table to take his plate from him, and he didn’t have it in him to protest. Riza picked up the empty bread baskets and stacked them neatly, handing them off to Gracia as she passed. Gracia smiled gratefully and mindlessly pressed a soft kiss against Riza’s forehead.

Roy felt his chest seize, and he stood up as quickly as he could manage without totally ruining the atmosphere. 

He said polite goodbyes, hugged Gracia and Elysia, let Riza pat his shoulder with an uncharacteristically relaxed look on her face, and slipped out to his car. He leaned his head on the steering wheel for a moment, breathing in the cold autumn air as deeply as he could, and took hold of his bearings. He drove home faster than was strictly necessary and slammed the door shut behind him when he got there. His coat was discarded on the floor and he unfastened the first two buttons on his shirt as he headed for the kitchen.

He made for the last cupboard, reached for the top shelf, and pulled down a bottle and a glass. He sat there, on a barstool at his kitchen counter, drinking until he couldn’t quite focus on the bottle in front of him. 

_ Maybe  _ Riza was on to something. 

His head was swimming and his legs felt impossible. He only made it about halfway onto his couch before he passed out. 

The shrill ringing of his telephone ripped Roy from sleep. His head was shot through with sharp bolts of pain with every peak of the sound. He wanted it to fucking  _ stop.  _

He leveraged himself on the coffee table and shoved himself up. He stumbled the few feet to the phone and wondered if answering was a good idea in this state. It was still dark out, so it was  _ very _ early, and if someone from work was calling him now it was likely serious. That would also make not answering a bad decision. 

He cleared his throat and tried to swallow the hoarse edge to his voice, then picked up the phone. “Hello?”

There was a loud, brash voice. “Hey! Colonel—”

There was another voice, softer, “ _ General!” _

_ “ _ Oh, yeah, yeah, General. How’ve you been keeping?”

Roy wasn’t sure he was capable of forming intelligible words at that point. “Um.”

There was a beat of silence. 

“Fullmet—”

“Yeah, that’s great, so what do you say you help us out here?”

“What?” Roy was going to pretend that he wasn’t slurring his words beyond recognition. 

“Jesus, Mustang, you sound like shit.”

“Um.”

The softer voice again, “Don’t be so rude! We want his help!”

“Elric?” 

A shrill, taunting guffaw. “Who else?”

Roy fainted. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ed, kicking down the door: whats up, fuckers!  
> roy, eating instant ramen from a mug: why do you have my house key?  
> ed: fuck you, thats why!


	3. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very short lo siento

Roy was unconscious only momentarily. 

Within seconds of hitting the floor, he was scrambling for the phone and pressing Edward for further details. 

He called Riza before he left, let her know where he was going and that either the Elric brothers were back or Roy was having the most vivid hallucinations he could fathom. She had questions, understandably. Roy couldn’t answer most of them, however, and promised they’d talk more in depth when he was certain he wasn’t losing his mind. He combed his hair back, changed his shirt, threw a coat over his shoulders, and set off for East City. 

He realized, once he was on the road and the sun began to flood the sky, that driving all that way was not economical at all, and traveling by train would have been quicker and easier. He decided that didn’t matter and focused on the road. 

He arrived to the address Edward had provided, at which a motel sat, and apparently was disintegrating. He wondered how the Elrics were paying for a room, even here. He sighed, rapped his knuckles against the steering wheel a few times, as if he were contemplating, and then stepped from his car. Immediately, a door on the second floor flew open and cracked against the wall. Roy’s gaze shot up. There, on that second story walkway, against the blackened exterior dry rot, was trailing blond hair and wild gold eyes and a triumphant smile. Roy’s heart seized. 

“Fuck,” he whispered under his breath. 

Edward only glanced down at him for a moment, before turning back to yell into the room. Moments later, Alphonse ducked out, looking older than Roy had ever seen him but undeniably Alphonse. He nudged Edward with his elbow and laughed out a remark that made Edward go red. Both Elrics trailed down the stairs, Edward threw a key onto the counter at the outdoor service window, and then it was showtime. 

Roy stiffened his posture, and his expression, as the Elrics fixed on him and strode towards him. 

Edward stopped about two feet from him, and pursed his lips as he looked Roy up and down. He put his hand on his hip. He looked Roy dead in the eye and smirked with something unrecognizable stewing in his face. “Rough night?” 

Roy almost rolled his eye. “I spent most of it driving here.” 

“Yeah, well, that’s your own issue.” He rounded the car and got into the passenger seat. Roy noticed that his right arm hung still by his side. Alphonse slid into the backseat. 

Roy’s head was pounding. He tried to get into the car with some measure of grace. 

“So!” Alphonse sounded awfully chipper. “What’d we miss?” His smile was broad, and even though he had to be something like fifteen now, he looked every bit an innocent young boy. 

Roy cleared his throat. “Nothing exciting.” 

Alphonse frowned. “Oh. Well, how have you been?” 

_ Drunk and disorderly, apparently.  _ “Alright. I’m leading investigations in Central again.” He turned onto the road and dreaded the next four hours. 

“Really? That’s great! How is everyone? Is everyone else still in Central?” 

“Mostly. Major Hawkeye is assigned to a field unit adjacent to mine, Captain Breda is directly under me in administration. Fuery commissioned recently, and he’s working with Hawkeye. Falman is in my shop, as well. Havoc’s been assigned to the South temporarily.” 

“Wow. You must be busy now, huh?” Alphonse was the only person Roy had ever known to be genuinely interested in his work in investigations admin. 

“Mostly. Not significantly more than I was as a field officer.” 

Alphonse nodded enthusiastically and then stopped, gave Roy a scrutinizing look that Roy pretended not to notice. 

“So how did— Well, how did  _ this  _ happen?” Roy tried to sound casual. He suspected he missed the mark. 

“We got blown up.” Alphonse sounded very casual. 

Roy can’t hide his surprise and confusion. “You  _ what? _ ” 

“We don’t really know what happened— you know—  _ scientifically, _ but we got blown up a little and then woke up here!” 

_ What the fuck _ . “You’re both  _ okay _ , though?” 

“Yeah, just a little scraped up, really; Ed’s going to need to go see Winry about automail, though.” Alphonse faltered just hardly on Winry’s name. 

Roy nodded in understanding. 

The next few hours passed in near silence, with Alphonse asking questions or pointing things out every ten minutes or so, but no conversation beyond that. 

Once they passed into the central region, Roy asked Edward, “What are you planning on doing?” 

He almost looked surprised to be spoken to. “I, uh.” His voice creaked and he cleared his throat. “I’m not sure yet. Wasn’t really planning on this.” 

Roy glanced out of the corner of his eye at Edward, who had his forehead pressed against the glass of the window and stared out at the passing buildings. There was a barely-there crease between his eyebrows and his teeth worried at his bottom lip. 

Roy’s heart did a painful little flip in his chest. 

“If you need somewhere to stay, I can ask Hawkeye and Gracia if they’d be willing to put you up.” He said more cautiously, “You could always stay with me, too.” 

Edward picked his head up and blinked a few times at Roy. He looked so  _ old _ and so tired, but he looked impossibly young at the same time. Roy felt sick. A broad grin split Edward’s face, and the corners of his eyes crinkled and his cheek gave to a shallow dimple and Roy felt like his heart was giving its greatest performance on the uneven bars. 

“Thanks, Mustang.” He turned around and prodded at Alphonse. “Al? That sound okay to you?” 

Alphonse turned from the window and did his best to look like he wasn’t paying close attention to the exchange. “Oh, of course, brother. Thank you so much, General.” 

Roy gave him a polite smile in the rear-view mirror. “It’s not a problem.” 

Roy pretended not to notice Edward looking at him curiously out of the corner of his eye. 

***

Roy’s home suddenly seemed woefully inadequate. 

The Elric boys stormed in the front door like they owned the place and immediately set to rummaging through anything and everything. Alphonse picked up a mission report from the coffee table and started giving commentary on what he read. Edward made straight for the kitchen and Roy heard the enthusiastic slamming of cupboards almost immediately. 

“Hey, Mustang. You don’t got shit in here.”

Roy sighed and hung up his coat. “I can go to the store.” 

“Eh. Also you need to do your dishes.” 

“Brother, you’ve never done a dish in your life.” Alphonse picked up a water bill from the coffee table and turned to Roy. He tapped the paper a few times, raised his eyebrows, and said “Pay this.” He seemed so startlingly _not fifteen_ that Roy was rendered completely speechless. 

Edward came stalking out of the kitchen to sit slumped on the couch next to Alphonse and kick his feet up on the coffee table. He was asleep almost immediately. Alphonse continued scrutinizing the bills and paycheck stubs on the coffee table. Roy excused himself to the upstairs and collapsed on his bed. He hadn't slept in his bed for months, and a very fine layer of dust kicked off the comforter. 

He kicked himself up and stripped the sheets from the bed. They were discarded next to the hamper in a tangled pile. Roy went to pull the spare bedding from the linen closet in the hall, and peeked down the stairs on his way back to his bedroom. Both Elric boys had their heads leaned back against the couch, fast asleep. 

After the bed was remade, Roy pulled another few blankets out of the linen cabinet and descended the stairs. He pulled the curtains all the way shut, to cut off the streams of midday sun filtering through the gaps between them. He draped blankets over Alphonse and Edward and paused as he tucked a blanket up under Edward’s chin. 

There were the barest beginnings of pale blond stubble along the gentle taper of his jaw. Roy’s eye traced up the curve of his face, the sharp bend of his nose, his smoothed brow. His bangs fell over his face, and Roy didn’t even think before he reached up and brushed the hair from Edward’s face with his fingertips. His fingers lingered on his cheek only barely until Edward’s eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open. Roy pulled back like he’d been burned and Edward twisted his face into the space where Roy’s hand had been. He mumbled something unintelligible and Roy went back to the bedroom as quickly and quietly as possible. 

***

The Elrics slept through the rest of the day and most of the night, waking up and causing a racket when Roy was only just setting an emptied glass on his bedside table and turning out the lights. 

Roy slept fitfully for only a few hours and decided sometime just before the sunrise to give up and rise for the day. He made himself look decently respectable and carried himself downstairs before he could really think about it. Edward had a spatula in hand and hovered over a skillet that Roy didn’t recall ever owning. Alphonse was scrubbing at a last few dishes in the sink. 

“Al, plates.” Edward gestured with the spatula to a pile of drying plates on a dish mat that Roy was almost certain he never purchased. “You.” Edward gestured over his shoulder at Roy without looking at him. He tapped the edge of the spatula to the handle of the pan. “Come lift this.” 

Roy did as he was asked and held the skillet tilted over each of the three plates so Edward could distribute eggs, and then the sausage and toast that were left to cool on separate plates. Alphonse carried the three plates out to the coffee table and Edward followed with silverware. 

“Come eat.” 

Roy followed and sat where he was prompted on the couch. “When did you buy all this?” 

Edward sat on the floor with a thud. “Between stealing the cash out of your wallet and frying it up to feed to your drunk ass.” 

Roy figured he looked affronted because Edward snorted at him. 

“You are not incognito with that shit, Mustang.” He didn’t sound particularly chastising, mostly amused. Roy thought he might have only wanted to hear a tiny streak of concern under it. 

Alphonse eyed Edward with furrowed brows, looking like he wanted to say something, but he turned back to his eggs after a long moment. 

“I don’t know if I should be thanking you or calling the police.”

Edward shrugged. 

Edward was finished eating quickly and picked up everyone’s plates when Roy and Alphonse finished too. The dishes clattered in the sink, like they were thrown haphazardly in. Roy jumped a little, and whipped his head around to look through the doorway, but he heard the water start running and the scrape of a sponge against dishes, and decided to stay seated. When he turned back to the coffee table, Alphonse was sitting immediately across him, leaning almost the entire way over with his face propped up on his hands and his mouth curled and eyes narrowed in an expression devious enough that Roy was reminded of a younger Edward, sitting in his office looking not the slightest bit sorry after completely wrecking some suburban town or another. 

A shudder of guilt tore through him when he thought about that Edward, and then the older one washing dishes in his sink. 

Alphonse pressed forward, though. “General, you wouldn’t mind letting us borrow some money for train tickets, would you? Brother will pay you back, of course, but…” He trailed off and looked down so sadly that Roy felt almost paternal. He reached for his coat hanging from the hook a few feet away. “I’ve already got it!” Alphonse pulled Roy’s wallet from his pocket, took out some cash, and then tossed it onto the table. “Thanks, General!” He smiled sweetly and took off for the kitchen. Roy wondered if Alphonse was always like this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> al could steal everything you own and you'd still want to give him $10


	4. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oho?

“God, Amestrian trains are awful. They don’t even  _ try _ to cushion these seats. I can’t feel my ass. Al. Al, are you listening? Don’t ignore me, you little shit. I’m in pain.”

Al looked completely unenthused. “Unfortunately, I’m hearing every word you’re saying.” He rolled his eyes and continued reading the alchemic research journal in his lap. 

“ _ Unfortunately? _ Do you even love me? Why do I feed your ungrateful ass, again?” 

“Something having to do with child neglect laws, probably.” 

“You’re almost sixteen, go scavenge or something.” 

“ _ Scavenge? _ Do I look like a  _ rat _ to you, brother?”

“Yes.” 

Al pouted the rest of the way to Resembool. 

They had called Winry the day before, and she told them she’d probably be working when they arrived, so they started down the main road toward the Rockbells’. Al was noticeably dragging his feet. 

“What’s eating you, kid?” Ed slowed a little and nudged his brother with his elbow. 

Al very quickly raised his frown to a tight smile and tried to smooth the crease between his eyebrows. “What do you mean?” 

Ed was not convinced. “S’it Winry?”

Al looked a little guilty. “I just— I don’t want to bother her or anything.” 

“You’re not, you know that.” 

“But—”

“ _ You’re not _ , Al.” 

“But you don’t know what it was like! She— I just, I know she was kind of uncomfortable having me around too much before, when you were gone, so.” 

Ed slapped his hand to Al’s shoulder. “She probably just needed to… adjust. Something like that. A lot went down, things changed. She doesn’t hate you or anything.” He really sucked at this. 

“ _ I  _ changed.” Al huffed. “I changed and now it’s— it’s too weird! She’ll never— It’ll never be the same.” 

“I’m sorry, Al. You never know, though.” 

Al didn’t say anything. 

  
  


The Rockbell Automail sign out front had seen better days, and the porch had a few more boards out of place, but seeing the Rockbell home still gave Ed the same bittersweet ache in his chest. He pushed open the front door and a little impossibly yellow puppy came scrambling over the hard wood floor. Den came slowly limping behind. 

“Win?” Ed called out. There was a clattering and a clanging and Winry came stumbling around the corner. 

She smiled like she couldn’t believe they were there. Ed saw Al shift uncomfortably out of the corner of his eye. 

“You idiots!” Winry marched right up and threw her arms around their shoulders. “You're really here.” They could hear a shake in her voice. She pulled back and reached for Ed’s right arm. “What the hell is this?”

“What happens when I break the nice prosthetics.” 

She scoffed. “Come on,” she said as she waved them both into the garage. “Granny! Ed and Al are here!” 

Pinako turned in her desk chair. “I’ll be damned. You really are like a couple of roaches, aren’t you?” Her smile was warm and genuine. 

Ed snorted. “Could say the same about you? What’re you going on? A hundred now?” There was no edge to his voice. He sat and took off his coat and overshirt, and let Winry get to work sizing up an automail arm first off. 

Al stood in the doorway like he didn’t know what to do. Winry noticed and gestured for him to come in. “Come sit down, Al.” 

“Oh!” He bowed his head and sat on the couch nearby. “Sorry.” 

Winry quirked an eyebrow and laughed. “For what?” 

Al just smiled uncomfortably and folded his hands in his lap. 

  
  


Pinako eventually sent Al out to the store for something-or-other and left the room to fix dinner. 

Ed turned to Winry. “Alright, the  _ fuck _ is going on with you and Al?”

Winry startled upright. “What?”

“He thinks you fuckin’ hate him. What’s going on?”

“I don’t—” She grunted as she tightened a bolt on some part of Ed’s new leg that he definitely couldn’t identify. “I don’t hate him? I don’t think I could if I wanted to.”

“Yeah, well he thinks you want him dead since he’s all… teenaged or whatever. I figured there was either more to the story or he was just being a drama queen.” 

“I mean, obviously things have to be different than they were before.” She sighed through her nose and frowned. “He’s— He’s just got growing up to do. He’s still  _ Al _ and he’s everything to me, he’s family no matter what, the  _ rest  _ of it’s just more complicated now.”

Ed nodded. “Just— was he acting like this before, too? When I wasn't here?”

Winry gave him a sad smile. “It’s better now, believe it or not.”

“Jesus.”

“I feel bad that he’s so uncomfortable around me. I think that he thinks his just being around makes  _ me _ uncomfortable.”

“That’s exactly it, actually.” 

Winry groaned. She stomped her foot on the floor a few times for good measure. 

“Yeah, me too.”

The little yellow puppy skittered in. “Well  _ hello, _ ” Ed cooed at it. “Who the fuck are  _ you _ , you little fuzzball?” He leaned down to scratch behind the puppy’s ears with his left hand; his right was in bits and pieces on Winry’s workbench still. 

“That’s Habit.” 

“What.”

“Habit.” Winry rolled her eyes at him. “Her name is Habit and we took her in a couple weeks ago.”

Ed turned back to the puppy. “You got a weird fuckin’ name, but you’re cute at least.”

“Well  _ I  _ thought it was clever.”

“How is that even— Actually, no, I don’t care.”

She shook wire cutters at him. “I’m the one assembling your limbs, asshole.” 

“ _ Meh meh meh I’m the one assembling your liiiimbs.”  _

“I’m just gonna stab you. One of these days, I swear.”

“Many have tried, few have succeeded.” 

She snorted. “At least those days are behind you.”

“Last time it happened was maybe a week ago.”

Winry paused and turned to give him a look best summed up in intention as  _ what the fuck.  _ “What were you  _ doing  _ over there to have people wanting to stab you still?”

“Running an underground bar in a place where alcohol is illegal, essentially.”

“There are places where alcohol is  _ illegal _ ?”

“God bless America, Win.”

“I’ve got so many questions.”

“Oh, so nothing new.”

“Dick.” She threw a wrench that smacked him square in the forehead. 

“ _ Whhhy I never!”  _ Ed threw his head back laughing at his own loud, droning drawl. Winry laughed a little, amused but clearly a bit confused, and Ed was struck with a sudden fear that he was out of place here, now. 

Only a few days ago, a snark like that would have a woman with Winry’s face peering over a sewing machine at him and telling him to  _ kick rocks, bar monkey.  _ He only then took a minute to wonder what happened once it was obvious that he and Al were gone. His mind conjured images of Mortier only almost frantic once the smoke cleared and they were nowhere to be found, with his face steely smooth but his eyes just a little wild. Behind his eyes the scene played, like off a choppy roll of film, of Mortier realizing both Elrics were gone. Not dead. Entirely gone, wiped off the face of the planet like they had never even been there. Maybe Roy—  _ that  _ Roy, the other Roy, the one with the drawling French accent and the scars he earned in trenches and the cool, kind eyes that Ed loved to have pinned on him, set under a stern brow and too-long draping black hair— maybe that Roy would worry, go see Whitney and Rosa first thing. Maybe those perfectly matching cool eyes would spark with that quiet, rumbling fear for someone he never should have known in that life. 

Ed thought it was always so funny, in a dark, not funny at all kind of way. The fates had destined him to Mustang, and he had gone and ripped himself into another reality, ventured across an ocean and found another Roy, the same but  _ so  _ different. People there didn’t have soulmates. Not in the same way, at the very least; if you were born with two different colored eyes, there was a reasonable biological explanation for it, and they wouldn’t ever change. If that other world had soulmates, it was up to you to find them. You could never know for sure if you did. He never looked into Roy Mortier’s eyes and got to watch black swallow gold, but he was so undeniably  _ Roy _ in that same quality that Mustang perfected that Ed could almost feel  _ right  _ about him. 

Not that  _ any  _ of that shit mattered, of course. 

They fucked a few times between late-night shifts and made puppy dog eyes at each other on occasion. It didn’t matter how close an approximation Mortier was, he was  _ Roy,  _ sure. He wasn’t ever going to be  _ Mustang _ . Ed would have rather died than said it out loud, but he knew he’d never be happy— not  _ really _ — so long as he was that incomprehensibly far from Mustang. 

He was starting to realize after maybe twenty-four hours back that maybe he wouldn’t be happy  _ here  _ either. Mustang was important and busy and otherwise clearly still seeing Ed as Amestris’s favorite rowdy little child soldier. Ed decided to selectively forget trying to confess his undying love to his commanding officer on a sunset street corner via inexperienced face mashing. 

He must have been making a face, because Winry threw some tiny piece of hardware at his head. “Are you okay?”

He laughed and kicked himself for sounding so nervous. “I’m good.”

Pinako yelled from the kitchen. Ed shot to his feet.

“Fuck yeah.”

“Wait, Ed—” Ed did not wait, in fact he made very quickly for the dining room. His balance was a little off, without the counterweight of a prosthetic on his right, and he had to balance himself on the edge of the dining table as Al swept around him with a basket of bread. 

“I made the bread!” Al put his hands on his hips and smiled broad and genuine. 

“The fuck did you learn to make bread?” 

Al rolled his eyes. “Mrs. Carter? They’re the only people we know that have ever baked anything probably.” 

“What about your little old lady church friends?”

“Them too.” 

Winry came stomping through the doorway. “I’m sorry,  _ you _ go to  _ church _ now?”

Al sighed and said as if it were the most obvious thing, “God is a lie but who am I to deny the nice Catholic ladies the opportunity to feed me?”

“Catholic ladies?” She threw herself into a chair opposite to where Ed stood. “What were  _ you _ doing while he went to church, then?” 

Ed decided he hated this conversation. “Oh, you know. We have friends.” He waved his hand in broad, vague circles. 

“We do! They’re very nice, sometimes.” Al took a pile of plates from the center of the table and began to set places. “You spent a lot of time with Mortier and Graciano usually, right?” He somehow did not pick up on the fact that Ed hated his conversation. 

Ed decided he would not be the only one hating this conversation. “Oh, yeah. While you were getting to know the bible, I was getting to know them.” Ed paused and Al tensed, pursed his lips as if he could feel it coming. “Got to know them  _ biblically _ ,” Ed  _ purred _ , biting down a cackle the second he let the words out. 

Al’s spine went ramrod straight. “You  _ what--  _ That’s  _ disgusting _ , brother, Jesus! You’re not joking are you? I  _ hate  _ you; that is  _ so  _ fucking  _ gross _ .” 

“Watch your language,” Pinako chided too happily from the kitchen. 

Winry looked caught between telling Al  _ not to say fuck _ and asking  _ what the fuck is happening.  _ Ed snorted. 

“Why  _ them?  _ Well, okay, I get why Roy, but Graciano of  _ all  _ people? Should I just consider myself lucky it wasn’t Rosa or Olivia or someone? Either way,  _ ew.”  _

Ed snorted again and dropped his weight into a chair. “Oh, no. The ladies got their turns.” 

“What the _fuck!_ _Ed!_ ” 

“Could you two start making sense? Just a little?” Winry leaned forward onto the table. 

“How many of them, brother? How many of our  _ dear  _ friends?” 

Ed raised an eyebrow and pretended to count on his fingers. “Just about all of them?” Al looked like he might faint. 

He steadied himself against the back of a chair with one hand and pulled at his hair with the other. “Was it just anyone you spent longer than fifteen minutes with?” Ed nodded gravely. “Is there anyone you did  _ not _ sleep with?” 

Ed shrugged. “The Carters?” 

“Thank Christ, my brother is a harlot, but he’s not a homewrecker!” 

Winry folded her hands in front of her. “Thank who? Who are the Carters? What’s going on? Who did you sleep with, Ed? You broke Al, I think.”

Al  _ wailed _ like he had been speared through. “ _ Everyone! _ ” He looked down at Ed with pleading eyes. “ _ How  _ do you expect me to face everyone now? In this world. How can I ever look Lieutenant Hawkeye in the eye again? General Armstrong? Lieutenant Havoc? Sergeant Fuery? I’m having trouble looking at Winry. I don’t have to worry about Greed, thank God. Roy’s fine, Roy’s absolutely whatever; I actually kind of expected that one. Might still make it a little awkward to go after General Mustang, don’t you think?”

“First off,” Ed cleared his throat and held up a finger accusingly, “I was not anticipating having to interact with any of these ones ever again. So. My bad.” Al scoffed. “Second! I am not going after Mustang, get that straight immediately.”

Al laughed at him. 

“Shut  _ up _ , dick. I’m not opening that can of worms.” 

“But you’ll open your legs for his French clone?” 

“It’s  _ different _ and you know that even though you absolutely should not.” 

“I am a man of God, brother. I know nothing of your libertine ways.” Al threatened him with a butter knife and stalked off into the kitchen. 

Ed turned to Winry. “Please tell me y’all keep liquor in this house.” 

Winry groaned. “I’ll get you the booze if you tell me what I just listened to.” 

“So there are, like, other versions of everyone from here on the other side of the gate, right? Right. We made friends with a lot of the mirror image clones of our friends from here over there and also I run a bar and make bad decisions.” 

Winry looked at him like he was absolutely the dumbest motherfucker. Ed decided that was fair. “So you just fucked all your friends? That wasn’t just a teensy bit odd? How  _ are  _ you going to face all of the ones here with that on your chest?” She raised her eyebrow higher than Ed would have thought it could go. 

“Very intoxicated is how.” 

She closed her eyes and nodded slowly. “I don’t blame you.” She pushed herself up and disappeared into the kitchen for a few moments, returning with what looked like scotch and a couple of glasses. As she filled the glasses, she sighed. “I do  _ not _ want to be asking this, but!” She took a deep, tired breath. “Did you sleep with other me, Edward Elric?” 

Ed died a little inside. He did not answer. 

“Answer me or you don’t get this.” She held up one glass and swirled it around just inches from his face. 

Ed mourned his dignity briefly. “Her name is Whitney. She is very nice.” 

“Whitney’s an ugly name and you disgust me.” She dropped the glass in front of him and sighed into her own. 

“Well  _ I  _ think Whitney is a gorgeous name and she is  _ much  _ nicer to me.” 

Winry snorted. “Is she actually?” 

“Hell no, you’re both miserable shrews.” 

He thought he really should have expected to be hit for that. 

“I have  _ one arm _ and you’re beating me!” 

“I hit you three times; that’s hardly a beating.”

“Beat Ed later, it’s time to eat!” Al paraded in with armfuls of dishes and Ed began to believe in  _ something.  _

They talked about things that  _ were not  _ Ed’s sex life over dinner and managed not to discuss that matter until the next morning when Ed was fitted with nice new Rockbell automail and Winry sent them off at the train station. 

She patted Ed’s back as she hugged him. “Be good in Central. Visit again soon, for longer.” She pushed him back by his shoulders and held him there. “And please, for the love of all that’s good,  _ keep it in your pants.” _

“Ah!” Ed swatted her arms away. “Screw off. I hate you.”

“Tell Mr. Mustang I say hello, preferably not as pillowtalk.” Her smile was deceptively warm and he hated it. 

“Forget every nice thing I have ever said to you.” 

“You’ve never been nice.” She shoved him back. “Get on the damn train, both of you.” Winry clapped Al’s shoulder with her palm and Al went absurdly red in the face. Ed shifted his weight, spun, and threw a wave over his shoulder. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> habit's short for habitat   
> because like  
> den (an animal's lair or habitation)  
> so habitat  
> we're very funny please clap

**Author's Note:**

> nooooo dont turn to alcohol ur so sexy haha


End file.
